Against the Grain

Volume 26 | Issue 5 Article 31

2014 David McCune Profile

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Recommended Citation (2014) "David McCune Profile," Against the Grain: Vol. 26: Iss. 5, Article 31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6865

This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Interview — SAGE and PeerJ from page 59 against thepeople grain profile he was excited about PeerJ’s innovative membership business model and relatively Director and Shareholder, SAGE low membership prices. How successful has your membership model proven to be? Given 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 that you had to seek a second round of outside Phone: (805) 499-0721 • funding, we wonder, is this model sustain- able? Are you committed to maintaining the Born & lived: Levittown, Pennsylvania. low pricing? Early life: Grew up in PA. Went to Sweden at 16 on an exchange program. Loved it. JH: Becoming a highly respected publisher Lived seven years in Sweden, where I went to agriculture school and journalism school. doesn’t happen overnight — it takes both time PROFESSIONAL CAREER AND ACTIVITIES: 1979 to 1981: Wrote in Swedish and and capital. Just look at PLOS, which went English for various newspapers and magazines. Great fun! through $12M in its first few years, andeLife 1981 to 1983: Writer/editor at Time, Inc. in New York. We created one of the world’s first took on a rumored $40M. PeerJ is a David electronic publishing platforms. It was an exciting, innovative newsroom. I worked for an in a world of Goliaths. We’re doing it with inspirational editor, a virtuoso manager, an idol of mine ever since. far, far less, but most successful businesses go through multiple financing rounds — via bank 1983 to 1988: Independent software developer. C and assembler guru. Hired gun. Did debt financing, grants, or venture capital. New battle with corporate COBOL programmers. I loved code more than I loved English. capital doesn’t come unless you’ve demon- 1989 to 1998: CEO of SAGE. We’re an education company, and we’re passionate about strated growth in one or more metrics, which that mission. My job was to build a culture and team of people who shared that passion we have in both publications and revenue. At David McCune and then give them the freedom to do great work. the same time, it can take more capital than 1999 to present: Director and shareholder at SAGE current cash flow allows to expand and really FAMILY: First wife, Susan, gone forever. Our son, Doug, a gift beyond words. Second grow — this is why businesses take on new wife, Gunilla, who taught me there is life after grief. Gunilla’s daughter and grandchildren. rounds of financing. A “Seed Round,” which Doug’s wife and children. I thank them all every day for valuable lessons learned. we took on in 2012, is like a starter lab grant IN MY SPARE TIME: I enjoy long-distance singlehanded sailing. and is really there just to prove that academics believe in PeerJ before taking on more capital FAVORITE BOOKS: The End by Anders Nilsen. I lost my first wife to cancer. This is the to grow the concept, which we’re now doing. book I wish I could have written. As for pricing, we are not changing the PET PEEVES: Life is too short. $99 per author for life promotion — it’s here PHILOSOPHY: Every day, learn something new and teach someone something. to stay; that’s the price point that we base MOST MEMORABLE CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Being a good father and husband while all of our decisions around (hiring, process building SAGE. innovation, technical innovation, etc). This HOW/WHERE DO I SEE THE INDUSTRY IN FIVE YEARS? I will answer this question is the real magic behind PeerJ, or at least the in two ways: where I would like to see the publishing industry and where I do see the advantage of being a new publisher. Instead publishing industry in five years. of taking all that we do and tallying up how much it costs and therefore how much to I would like to see a world where there is vastly more open and transparent, back-and- charge, we did the opposite. We started with a forth debate in the development, dissemination, review, and evaluation of scholarship. The price point of $99 and asked ourselves, “What “review-comment-revision” aspect of research should be extended, more collaborative, must happen in order to afford that?” Well, more open, and celebrated. I am excited to see startups that incorporate and advocate for starters that’s why we make heavy use for pre-pub , open-access dissemination, post-publication debate and review, of , and why we decided to and new forms of evaluation (i.e., altmetrics). I would love it if these efforts had a real build the submission and reviewing platform impact on the scholarly process in the future. ourselves (to rapidly iterate improvements) I would also like us to have figured out a sustainable business model for the wide dis- instead of licensing it. semination of rigorously reviewed research, particularly in the social sciences. When you ATG: Peter was also very high on PeerJ’s publish a piece of research, its potential positive impact has no limits. greatly service, which was eventually expands the audience for scientific research and when done correctly, incorporates an launched as PeerJ . Are members extensive and rigorous review-and-revision process — how could this not be a good thing? effectively taking advantage of this service Also, all who take part in these processes — peer reviewers, commenters, revisers — should the way you hoped? Are there plans to en- be identified publicly for their interactive role in each part of the process. In fact, I believe hance it as you gain more funding? that they should be credited, celebrated, and even rewarded (e.g., towards tenure) for these efforts. (Yes, I understand that peer review needs to be blind sometimes, such as when a PB: People are definitely using preprints junior scholar reviews a senior scholar’s work, but that should be the exception, not the rule.) in a wide variety of ways, which is exactly what we hoped when we launched it. The Where do I believe we will actually be in five years? Through experimentation with various functionality is deliberately very accommo- open access, review, and new metric models (e.g., PeerJ), in five years, scholars will have dating of different submission types — it developed publishing programs that increase the access of scientific research to a broader simply accepts PDFs, and those PDF files public, but there will still be a need for more experimentation. Subscription-based journals can be articles, opinion pieces, posters, Pow- will still be published for some time, especially within the social sciences and humanities, erpoints, or even simple abstracts. We have where funding for open access is scarce. preprints from amateur scientists through to The current system of anonymous, uncredited peer review — along with an over-reliance people at the top of their field, and we have on the sheer number of publications a scholar accumulates in journals — is seen people use PeerJ PrePrints to showcase overdue for disruption. The incentives and power structure within the academy change the abstracts of their conference (and even very slowly. It will take some time before the current system changes, though I hope to be to be the official submission route for their able to find new ways to support improvements in the system for more open collaboration. conferences and symposia); to contain con- I encourage any entrepreneur who has a plan to open up scholarly communication to get tentious “discussion” pieces; to gain feedback in touch. continued on page 61 60 Against the Grain / November 2014